Bitch Media - hyperwhitenesshttp://bitchmagazine.org/taxonomy/term/10710/0
enPreacher's Daughter: A Word About Slutwalk, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and Who Gets to Reclaim Racist Words and Traditionshttp://bitchmagazine.org/post/preachers-daughter-so-who-gets-to-reclaim-racist-language-and-traditions
<p>Full disclosure: I have had misgivings about Slutwalk from day one. "Slut" has never been a term used against me. Though the idea of reclaiming the word seems to resonate with many young, white heterosexual women, it is not clear to me how it's something that can unify <em>all</em> women. It felt <a title="&quot;Am I Troy Davis? A Slut?; or, What's Troubling Me about the Absence of Reflexivity in Movements that Proclaim Solidarity,&quot; Stephanie Gilmore at Racialicious" href="http://www.racialicious.com/2011/10/11/am-i-troy-davis-a-slut-or-what%e2%80%99s-troubling-me-about-the-absence-of-reflexivity-in-movements-that-proclaim-solidarity/#disqus_thread" target="_blank">alienating and exclusionary</a> from the start.</p>
<p><a title="Racialicious post with photograph and commentary" href="http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=123652457" target="_blank">Last week</a>, one Kelly Peterlinz was photographed at Slutwalk NYC holding a sign made by Erin Clark reading, "Woman is the n****r of the world," the title of a song by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Organizers asked Peterlinz to remove the sign, but the photos had already been taken. Thus began another debate about the word itself, in which <a title="Organizers' response to critiques " href="http://slutwalknyc.com/" target="_blank">Slutwalk NYC organizers</a>, along with Peterlinz and Clark, did the rounds, offering up torturous pleas that their <em>hearts</em> were in the right place. And anyway, <a title="See comments by Peterlinz and Clark in this thread at Racialicious." href="http://www.racialicious.com/2011/10/06/slutwalk-slurs-and-why-feminism-still-has-race-issues/" target="_blank">Peterlinz and Clark maintained</a>, women <em>are. That word. White women even</em>. They are sorry if anyone was offended, but stand by their point about Class Woman.</p>
<p>Then, when <a title="Open Letter to Slutwalk, Sydette Harry" href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/sydette-harry/an-open-letter-to-slutwalk/10150413913020937" target="_blank">Sydette Harry offered a trenchant and important critique of Slutwalk</a>, <a title="Jake Areyeh Marus, legal counsel, organizer and &quot;Intersectional Partner&quot; for Slutwalk Philadelphia." href="http://jamieboschan.com/intersectional_activism/2011/08/09/slut-walk-philadelphia/jake-aryeh-marcus-legal-counsel-for-slut-walk-philadelphia/" target="_blank">Jake Areyeh Marcus</a> of Slutwalk Philadelphia showed up to shame the Mean, Evil Women of Color who spoke out—and blame them for the emotional stress suffered by one of her fellow organizers. Yes, <em>really</em>.<em>&nbsp;</em></p>
<p>For a word that isn't about us, we white people sure know how to keep ourselves at the center of the discussion, amirite?</p>
<p>All of this gnashing of teeth about whether or not white women get to claim the word, "n****r," as ours. Isn't that what this is? That is, a slightly more sophisticated take on the old question, "Why don't <em>we</em> get to say it if <em>they</em> get to say it?" Why do we feel entitled to dictate the terms of these debates? Do we, the beneficiaries of slavery, think—in spite of everything—that <em>we own</em> these racist words too?</p>
<p>Yesterday, Harry <a title="Follow-Up to Open Letter to Slutwalk, Sydette Harry" href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/sydette-harry/followup/10150417725290937" target="_blank">wrote a follow-up</a> to her open letter. Noting that organizers with Slutwalk had not responded to her, she incisively wrote, "<em>My liberation is not glamorous enough, it seems, to be considered essential. However, it is intrinsic to yours. As long as there is a N****R of the world to be compared to, the treatment of that same will be, sadly, the measure of oppression</em>."</p>
<p>This dynamic—in which white people dictate the terms of the discussion <em>about</em> racism <em>to</em> black people—is not unfamiliar. <em>Come on</em>, we'll say, <em>don't you realize that we're all on the same side</em>? <em>Don't you know how it hurts my feelings to be called a racist?</em> So, in 2011, whites are still wrongly asking: To whom does racist history belong?</p>
<p>Maybe you've watched a similar dynamic swirl around an old-time band called the <a title="Carolina Chocolate Drops" href="http://www.carolinachocolatedrops.com/" target="_blank">Carolina Chocolate Drops</a>. Perhaps you heard Melissa Block wonder on NPR whether or not it's okay for the Carolina Chocolate Drops to reclaim so-called "<a title="&quot;Carolina Chocolate Drops: Old-Time Music With A Twist,&quot; NPR" href="http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=123652457" target="_blank">minstrel music</a>," never mind the actual origins of the banjo they play. If so, you know that classically trained singer, Rhiannon Giddens, actually had to say, "<em>Here's the deal. We play fiddles and banjos and we're black</em>."</p>
<p>It's a question that is never asked of the<em> many </em>white bluegrass and old-time musicians in North America. Nor was it asked of Feminist-Approved singer Michelle Shocked back <a title="Arkansas Traveler, Michelle Shocked" href="http://www.michelleshocked.com/detail_arkansas_traveler_reissue.htm" target="_blank">when she did an entire album based on minstrel song covers</a> in the early nineties.</p>
<p>We interrogate black people about the reclamation of language and tradition, but not ourselves. And we <em>certainly</em> think we get to reclaim racist history for our own liberation, as Michelle Shocked did and as protesters at Slutwalk have done.</p>
<p>Here is what Giddens has to say about reclamation in <a title="Carolina Chocolate Drops, &quot;Banjo Dreams/Jalidong&quot;" href="http://youtu.be/xJvqrHBG_6I" target="_blank">a powerful spoken word poem</a> from the Chocolate Drops' 2008 album, <em>Heritage</em>:</p>
<blockquote><p>In my dream, history falls in on itself, and in my dream, there is no blackface, no misappropriation, no misdirection, no diasporic disconnect from the great hammering of our great-grandfathers' fingers. Instead, banjo sounds frequent the airwaves - like the most insidious hip-hop beat - spreading as dangerously as any soul clap, are sampled over and over until they become part until they become part until they become part of race memory... And in my dream—with our own black hands—we play, we pluck, we embrace what has always been ours to begin with.</p></blockquote>
<p>I'm not saying that white people can't do country, but I am asking: Which looks more like it glorifies the Old South, and which just looks like joy?</p>
<p>This song by <a title="&quot;Wagon Wheel&quot; lyrics" href="http://www.lyrics.com/wagon-wheel-lyrics-old-crow-medicine-show.html" target="_blank">Old Crow Medicine Show</a>?&nbsp;</p>
<p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1gX1EP6mG-E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>Or this?</p>
<p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Egra25z7ya8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>I have not explicitly discussed spirituality in this post, though I hope the reasons that it fits in this series are implicit. These are questions that we ask of religion just as we ask them of culture: What exactly <em>is</em> my tradition? Can my tradition be reclaimed in a way that is liberatory rather than oppressive? And who do I need to be listening to to keep me from just stomping all over traditions and past injustices in ways that hurt people?</p>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eSHLXE-LHHo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>"<a title="&quot;I Know I've Been Changed&quot; lyrics" href="http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/tom_waits/lord_ive_been_changed.html" target="_blank">I Know I've Been Changed</a>"</p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/preachers-daughter-so-who-gets-to-reclaim-racist-language-and-traditions#commentsblackfaceCarolina Chocolate Dropshyperwhitenesslanguage reclamationracismrapeSexual Violenceslut-shamingtraditionMusicTue, 11 Oct 2011 18:51:25 +0000Kristin Rawls13061 at http://bitchmagazine.orgRevenge of the Feminerd: Nerd "Hyperwhiteness"http://bitchmagazine.org/post/revenge-of-the-feminerd-nerd-hyperwhiteness
<p><img src="/sites/default/files/u36600/weirdal.jpg" alt="Weird Al dressed as a typical nered-white with glasses, a tucked in white shirt. He is balancing two symbols of two computer programs on each of his fingers" height="280" width="380" /></p>
<p>Reading Benjamin Nugent's book <em>American Nerd</em> in preparation for writing this column I came across a reference to research by UC Santa Barbara linguistics professor <a href="http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/bucholtz/">Mary Bucholtz</a>, which argues that nerd culture manifests "hyperwhiteness" in its language. Nugent didn't elaborate on this much in his book but he'd also <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/magazine/29wwln-idealab-t.html">written a review of her research</a> for the <em>New York Times</em>, and I thought the whole idea of how nerd culture is racialized was really interesting…and pretty problematic.</p>
<p>So Bucholtz' basic argument can be summed up as follows, though we should keep in mind that she's basing her conclusions on small-scale ethnographic research with US college and high school students and I don't believe she's trying to generalize about whiteness or blackness but rather delineate social relations at particular schools:</p>
<p>First, she argues nerds use "hyperwhite" language (i.e. extreme grammatical correctness, diction, strict phrasing, over-explaining). Think Data in <em>Star Trek: The Next Generation</em>. They purposefully make themselves less cool and emphasize intelligence through language.</p>
<p>Second, Bucholtz observed that nerds deliberately avoid slang, especially hip hop- or black-associated slang. Thereby they refuse to exercise a type of white privilege by not co-opting black culture.</p>
<p>Finally, nerds' scorn of black hip hop culture as unintelligent sometimes leads them to refuse to consider the possibility of including blacks as friends in their groups.</p>
<p>Here's a quote from Nugent's article:</p>
<blockquote><p>By cultivating an identity perceived as white to the point of excess, nerds deny themselves the aura of normality that is usually one of the perks of being white. Bucholtz sees something to admire here. In declining to appropriate African-American youth culture, thereby "refusing to exercise the racial privilege upon which white youth cultures are founded," she writes, nerds may even be viewed as "traitors to whiteness." You might say they know that a culture based on theft is a culture not worth having. On the other hand, the code of conspicuous intellectualism in the nerd cliques Bucholtz observed may shut out "black students who chose not to openly display their abilities." </p></blockquote>
<p>Bucholtz' arguments reminded me of the Weird Al song "White and Nerdy" in how they distinguish nerd culture as white and uncool and and hip hop culture as black and cool:</p>
<p><object height="349" width="425">
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</embed></object></p><p>(<a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/weirdalyankovic/whitenerdy.html">lyrics to "White and Nerdy"</a>)
</p>
<p>I want to use this blog post as a basis for discussion, for two reasons. The first reason is that I went to a rural Canadian high school where we had 2% visible minority population, so I don't feel I can speak to my own experience compared to Bucholtz's findings. The second reason is that I'm white and it shouldn't ultimately be up to me to say whether or not nerd culture is inclusive.</p>
<p>But here are some observations I have and some concerns I have with Bucholtz's research being applied on a larger scale. I don't have answers and I'd love to hear people's thoughts on these.</p>
<ol>
<li> Nerds are defined by similar behavior in countries around the world, even where there is less of a stereotyped cultural delineation between black and white. Can you still call it "hyperwhiteness" and a rejection of hip-hop culture in these places?</li>
<li>Bucholtz states that in the schools she visited, Asians were seen as "honorary whites" in nerd circles. But there's a huge sub-section of nerd culture that revolves around appropriated Asian (esp. Japanese) cultural phenomena, like manga, anime, and Lolita. If white people are into these areas and/or use terms like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otaku">"otaku"</a> are they "honorary Asians"?</li>
<li> Nerds do have their own set of slang terms, especially in particular nerd sub-cultures. Consider "pwned", "noob", "flame war" or "w00t". And what about LOLCatz-type language, which clearly breaks with strict grammatical rules. Is this slang racialized white because it's nerd slang?</li>
<li>Is it problematic to define strict grammatical English as white and hip hop slang as black? I'm concerned that it wrongly implies a racial intelligence gap.</li>
</ol>
<p>When I started this column, I argued that the stereotype of nerdiness <em>is</em> one that tends not to allow room for certain people of color, but that fundamentally nerdiness is about being obsessive about something, and about being intellectually driven. I don't believe those are characteristics unique to whites.</p>
<p>But nerd culture may tend to be exclusive, and I don't agree with Bucholtz's assertion that white nerds' refusal to appropriate "black" slang is a refusal of privilege. If language does prevent black kids from joining nerd cliques, maybe that's just a manifestation of racism–intentional and unintentional.</p>
<p>When this article came out, <a href="http://tcnoc.blogspot.com/2007/08/more-on-nerds-as-hyperwhite-debate.html">Nora at Twin Cities Nerds of Color</a> responded by calling out the overt racism she's experienced as a nerd of color:</p>
<blockquote><p> So I think Mary Bucholtz is giving her nerds too broad a pass. I agree with her that many white nerds practice this "hyperwhiteness". But I think many of them use it as a means of deliberately excluding people of color from their preferred spaces. I also think that in addition to the subtle exclusion of hyperwhiteness, quite a few of these nerds practice the overt exclusions of racist verbal assaults, rejection of race-related topics, and dismissal of nerds of color as worthy of respect or attention.</p></blockquote>
<p>So what has your experience been, particularly if you're a feminerd of color? Is nerd culture and language used as a way to further exclude people who aren't white? Is it more complex than that? How can nerd communities be more anti-racist?</p>
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/revenge-of-the-feminerd-nerd-hyperwhiteness#commentsanti-racismGeneral nerditryhyperwhitenesslinguisticsmary bucholtzrevenge of the feminerdSocial CommentaryFri, 17 Jun 2011 17:21:45 +0000Jarrah Hodge10831 at http://bitchmagazine.org